Spark Spot

Even now some of the people believe that LTTE Chief Prabhakaran is alive. Although the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam that Prabhakaran founded has been virtually destroyed, its overseas adherents refuse to believe that the legendary rebel leader was killed in Sri Lanka May 18.

While reams of obituaries have been written the world over about the man who almost broke up Sri Lanka, LTTE functionaries in the West are dubbing Colombo’s claims of killing the elusive Prabhakaran as fantasy. And many seem to genuinely believe this – or at least doubt Colombo’s version of his final hours.

Leading the propaganda of the LTTE or what remains of it in foreign countries is its international wing leader S. Pathmanathan who made his first statement May 19, a day after Prabhakaran’s death was announced.
‘I wish to inform the global Tamil community… that our beloved leader is alive and safe. He will continue to lead the quest for dignity and freedom for the Tamil people,’ the pro-LTTE website Tamil Net quoted him as saying.

Apparently realising that Pathmanathan’s words are not having the desired effect, a member of the LTTE intelligence wing has now ‘categorically denied’ that Prabhakaran was dead. He accused Colombo and its military establishment of spreading ‘rumours’.

According to Sri Lanka, Prabhakaran, founder leader of the LTTE, was killed following heavy fighting with the military which trapped him close to a lagoon in Mullaitivu district in the island’s north. He was reportedly with 18 of his bodyguards when he was cut down, with a single bullet in the front of the head that blew off the upper portion of his head.

Thousands of his Tamil supporters, particularly in the West, insist that Prabhakaran had broken the army cordon at the last moment and that photos and television footage showing him dead were doctored. But diplomats and security agencies around the world firmly believe that Prabhakaran has been slain although speculation persists as to how and when he breathed his last.

A Western diplomat based in Colombo told IANS over telephone: ‘We are in no doubt about Prabhakaran’s fate. He is dead and gone.’ Tamil sources in London, where the Tigers have enjoyed wide support among the Tamils, say the LTTE is finding it difficult to come to terms with the reality that Prabhakaran is no more.